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and he reinvested every cent of profit targeting this weak point. This counter-intuitive strategy
paid dividends, and today a massive proportion of the company’s business comes from
personal referrals and inbound leads. Said Criss Rathbun, IT Manager, NextGen Healthcare
Information Systems: “My team would routinely see machines that took four or more hours to
disinfect and repair, or to simply extract, data files. I've tried dozens, if not more, removal tools.
The only one that consistently cleaned a machine to a usable state was Malwarebytes. And that
was using the freeware standalone version.”

Kleczynski knew he had to learn from the opposition – in this case, malware developers.
Known for their renegade activities, cybercriminals are unburdened by rigid power structures
and organizational politics, giving them a purity of focus to develop cutting-edge techniques.
Kleczynski recognized that anti-malware developers must operate in the same way, and he has
placed the highest priority on allowing his employees’ passion for problem-solving to come to
fruition, promoting innovation over structure. In addition, he realized that good ideas are not
limited to his own staff; actively courting feedback from forum users and building this into
products.

The pedigree of his staff – not just executives, but also developers, support staff, and front-line
personnel – has become a measure of Kleczynski’s dedication to his customers. His team’s
innovations saved over 250 million computers last year and have removed over five billion
pieces of malware.

In a recent recruiting piece for the company, Kleczynski left nothing unsaid about the passion
his team has: “You should HATE malicious software in all its forms and feel a vindictive
pleasure as you join us in slaughtering it.” In an odd or misguided sense of loyalty, a number of
cybercriminals have even been caught using Malwarebytes’ technology as a benchmark for
their operations.

Kleczynski Finds the Revenue Sweet Spot

Due to this passion to protect Internet users, Kleczynski is dedicated to offering much of the
company’s intellectual property for free. Conventional wisdom holds that a free product can
build a loyal user base but may or may not induce users to “buy up” to greater capabilities.
However, by leveraging the company’s sterling brand and reputation, Kleczynski has launched a
fee-based consumer product and a fast growing enterprise offering, which is on track to
generate significant revenues this year.

As validation of the efficacy of the company’s products, Malwarebytes in June, 2014, won the
applause of AVTest, an independent IT-security institute, for being the only product to achieve a
perfect 100 percent score for cleaning-up the latest sophisticated threats over a grueling 10
month period.

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